Uber lovely Paper Snowflakes and Stars...

In preparation for my children's art-classes am doing all sorts of research for good art activities that last about an hour, keep little fingers and minds busy and hey presto...make something gorgeous to take home.  Suitable for all ages between 6-11, not too expensive and plentiful in materials.

Am struggling.

Last weeks class if proving hard to beat...we had a ball, making these Christmas Hearts & Stars.  So..onward.  This week am thinking Paper Snowflakes...I LOVED making these when I was little.  The best ones I have found are here by Vintage Junky.  They are beautiful, so beautiful in fact that am going to have to show her picture of them in situ...swoon.

See beautiful.  Now all I need is a super sharp pair of scissors, a beautifully painted wall, some original cornicing like hers and we are away.

Back to the drawing table.

Scroll down for next possibility....

I loved these stars too.   Please forgive me friendly blogger, I can't refind you anywhere to link this to you but please rest assured, I love them.  These are distinct possibility for my class.  Very doable, although am probably going to have to cut a gazillion stars out myself first me thinks.  Great to paint and decorate, lovely with ribbon.

Onward with my quest.

Will bring you results soon...I promise.

Much love

Sam x

The one where I bore even myself..(ahem) but then I pull it back beautifully...

I keep changing my mind as there are quite frankly a gazillion things that we can spend our delicious 1hr 15minutes doing at this week's Artypops art class.    

My thinking is (of course) all about drawing and I am spending hours surfing the net, digging out old lesson plans and dreaming up new activities, each highlighting different and wonderful things for the children to learn.

I went to town today to get said classes'  art supplies and darling son a winter coat.   He has one by one lost them all, grown out of them or ripped them to shreds in a growing up boy/incredible hulk type thing... so this year at the ripe old age of 8, he deserves a new one from an actual shop!  One that I can bleat on about keeping clean and not lost...blah blah blah...whoops am actually boring myself here too...a thousand apologies.

Ah yes, sketchbooks and little folios.

It's a no-brainer that as an Artist I do that thing that makes me all excited and creative when viewing a couple of shelves of art stuff or when in a stationers.

Am sure it was from when I was younger, my aunt ran a stationers for a little bit so when we went to see her we a: got to be in the shop when it was closed (big wow it was) and b: got to choose two things from the stationary bit to keep us quiet   as a treat upon seeing her.

Its that smell of clean paper - ok am sounding freaky now so am going to wrap it up (lovely pun) suffice to say that today I bought a gazillion sketchpads for the babes to work in...each and everyone a beauty.

No really , it's actually very exciting.

Sam x

Children's Art telly programmes..all hail 'Deadly Art' (CBBC). Also turning mega lions into ducks...

In our house, during school holidays and on weekend mornings (when mum and dad get the chance for an extra hour in snooze land) our babes are allowed telly in the mornings.   It's called 'Saturday morning telly' whatever the day...much easier this way.

Darling son hauls himself and his duvet downstairs on the the massive snuggly sofa to burn his brains out on whatever he fancies from the children's channel, Darling Daughter comes down about 20 later and they snuggle on the sofa until our day begins.

This morning however I have work to do so leaving a snoozing daddy, I am in the office doing exactly NOT what am supposed to be doing, blogging.     I am however, stupidly inspired artistically from watching 'Deadly Art' a children's telly programme that I sat glued to with both my babes under the duvet on said snuggly sofa.

Now then...in my day we had 'Take Hart' 'Why Don't You' and 'Magpie' along with 'Blue Peter' for creative inspiration.  All of which were wonderful, basic but wonderful and I think I actually owe my artistic career to Tony Hart, who, sniff died last year.

Today my babes are 8 and 4 so we have (endured) 'Mister Maker' (queue the theme tune in my head...NOOOOOOooo!) and I think thats about it really.

This morning though I watched the afore mentioned 'Deadly Art' and it made me really happy to be doing so.

Mixing up footage of 'deadly animals' (this morning was the lion) and then taking that back to the art studio where two (very young...why?) Artists where ready to 'make art' from the link.  Nice.  In one programme we had a 3d model of a lion's head, a large 2m x2m squared canvas painting (that was the BIG reveal at the end of the programme) and during the programme, lots of drawing of a lions head.

During the filming of this programme, the crew had set up camp somewhere to call an event of lion-drawing to film...queues of children waiting patiently with less patient parents lining up to get drawing...I found the whole thing ace in fact.

Children create naturally.  This programme was all about getting them inspired to draw and get arty around the subject that they had chosen and were enthusing massively about...and...proof of the pudding...8 year old Darling Son is now all inspired to draw (albeit still on the sofa) so today, we are going out for a walk in the countryside to find some lions...oh alright..some ducks.

Hope they strike the same cord...may have to do some creative imagining with them...

Will report back later, well done 'Deadly Art'.

Sam x